Israel’s relations with Middle East hinge on threat of war in Lebanon

Benjamin Netanyahu courted Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman who signalled his interest. Picture: AFP.

Benjamin Netanyahu already had the Abraham Accords under his belt when he left office in 2021, signing treaties and exchanging ambassadors with the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, and Bahrain.

Back in power a year later, Netanyahu said he was aiming for a bigger prize: Saudi Arabia.

Opening official relations with the Middle East’s biggest economy and most influential Muslim power would have been a breakthrough with no parallel since Menachem Begin made peace with Egypt in 1979.

Netanyahu courted the Saudis and they signalled their interest in return.

President Biden was enthused by a potential deal. There was, however, a problem. Saudi Arabia, as one official had put it, was the Arab world’s most eligible bride. But its dowry would be a commitment by Netanyahu to establishing a Palestinian state, among other concessions.

Washington had prepared to dispatch Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, to Israel in October last year to emphasise that this was a red line for the Saudis.

But when he did arrive in Israel, it was only days after the Hamas attack in which more than 1,100 people were massacred and 200 people taken hostage.

That in turn prompted the war in Gaza and renewed attacks by Hezbollah on Israel, starting a countdown to a regional war that the US has feverishly been attempting to avoid.

Despite the strenuous condemnations from Arab states – whose governments mostly despise Hamas – the war in Gaza, and now the spiralling hostilities in Lebanon, have merely frozen the drift towards Arab normalisation with Israel.

There are hopes in Riyadh that a new, and more moderate, Israeli government will resume the talks, but Saudi Arabia will insist on its conditions, the crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, the country’s de facto leader, told a government meeting last week.

The Times